Let's be real for a minute here. I have crappy skin. I have since I was 11. I use two prescription acne meds, which have been awesome, but I've been starting to get pimples again lately. My own skin has definitely been one of my motivations to get into this experimenting, in addition to the fact that I love doing it. However, salicylic acid, one of the main ingredients that helps with acne, is really hard to work with. It's more-or-less insoluble in water, and though it is oil soluble, oil is exactly what you don't want to add to acne prone skin. It's also soluble in ethanol, but my skin is sensitive and doesn't love alcohol. So yeah, it's a tough ingredient. But I'm a smarty pants, so I can do this, right?
My super respectable string of one successes has made me cocky.
I planned to make a really simple salicylic acid toner kind of thing. (On a side note, I have never seen a satisfactory definition of "toner," it's such a weird product.) Only four ingredients: distilled water, salicylic acid, propylene glycol to dissolve the SA and act as a humectant, and preservative. Expecting this might be a failure, I only attempted 10 g. Yay for scales that measure down to 0.01 g!
So I got a wee beaker and mixed my SA, propylene glycol, and preservative in it. All looked good. The SA dissolved and I had a clear solution. Now to add the water... added slowly while stirring... and here I witnessed the magic that is precipitation! Tiny, hairy-looking crystals of salicylic acid forming in my beaker! Very cool science, but undesirable results in a skin care product. Boo.
Fail number one.
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